The latest data from the Fiber Economic Bureau show that sales
olefin, polyester and rayon staple to the nonwovens trade in the second
quarter were 186 million pounds, a 3% improvement over the preceding
quarter but virtually the same as they were in the corresponding months
of last year. For the first six months of the year, sales totaled 367
million pounds, 1% (5 million pounds) under the figure for the
corresponding months of 2003. The summary figures are shown in Table 1.

There were no significant changes in the relative importance of
these fibers in the nonwovens business. Olefin continues to set the pace
with a 50% share of the total compared to 42% for polyester and 8% for
rayon.

For a number of years, staple-based nonwovens outperformed the rest
of the olefin and polyester staple markets. For convenient reference, we
have called other markets "traditional" to distinguish them
from nonwovens. For practical purposes, the "traditional"
markets are those (e.g. woven fabrics, knit goods, etc.) that use yarn whereas staple-based nonwovens are formed without going through a yarn
spinning process. In good years, nonwovens tended to grow at a faster
rate than the other traditional markets. In bad years, shipments to
nonwovens usually decline less than in traditional markets. But,
recently that comparison has tended to move in favor of the traditional
markets as the staple-based nonwovens business matured and presumably lost some competitive ground to the new methods of producing nonwovens.
Table 2 illustrates the performance of nonwovens versus traditional
markets for the two fibers.

Total domestic shipments of the two fibers increased by 34 million
pounds, or 3%, but that was the result of a drop in nonwovens and an
increase in the traditional markets for olefin and polyester staple
fibers. For olefin, the only major market besides nonwovens is carpet.
Polyester, on the other hand, has several major outlets, woven goods,
knit fabrics and carpet face yarns as well as fiberfill.

Fiberfill

In sharp contrast to the lackluster performance of nonwovens, the
polyester fiberfill business has done extremely well in the first six
months of this year. Sales amounted to 222 million pounds, a striking 40
million pounds, or 22%, ahead of the corresponding period of last year.
Even after allowing for some slowdown while the market digests the very
high first half shipments, it seems that 2004 will be excellent year for
the fiberfill business. An annual total in the 460 million pound range
is entirely possible. If achieved it would surpass the record of 453
million pounds achieved in 2000.